B. Water ([email protected]) asked how to determine which
version of Windows 98 he is running, and that was answered by
Joseph Coveney ([email protected]). B. Water wanted to
know this because of an earlier discussion about the clipboard
format being used by Stata and compatibility issues with
"old" versions of Windows. B. Water was under the impression
from an earlier discussion on Statalist that he would be better
off using Windows 98/SE rather than the original Windows 98.
This is not the case.
To clear up any confusion, I would like to restate the issue and report what
we are doing about it.
The most recent executable update of Stata 8 for Windows uses EMF (Enhanced
Metafile) format as its default clipboard format. The originally-shipped
Stata 8 for Windows executable used WMF (Windows Metafile) format as
the default clipboard format.
The reason for the change is that the WMF format has some issues with
rotated text (which is used much more extensively in Stata 8 than in
Stata 7) and filled polygons (which are used in Stata 8's new
graphics for such things as shaded confidence intervals), while the
EMF format does not have these issues.
However, we have since found that EMF is not fully supported by
"old" versions of Windows. By "old", I mean the line of Windows
that started with Windows 95, and includes Windows 98, Windows 98/SE,
and Windows ME. Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows XP can all
be thought of as "modern" versions of Windows.
We plan on releasing an update early next week which will allow
users to choose between WMF and EMF format when they copy to the
clipboard. The default choice under old versions of Windows will
be WMF. The default choice under modern versions of Windows will
continue to be EMF.
In addition, we are investigating workarounds for the limitations of
the WMF format in older versions of Windows.
Stata 8 under all versions of Windows has the capability to export
graphs as either WMF or EMF files. Simply choose "Save Graph..." from
the "File" menu and select the output format of choice. Using this
method, users of older versions of Windows can export WMF files immediately
and then import them into Word or other applications of their choice.
Alan
([email protected])
*
* For searches and help try:
* http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/findit.html
* http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
* http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
